My Own Sense of Belonging

My history, my roots—they felt irrelevant in this 'unified' Germany, where my Eastern identity was dismissed or dragged through the mud

I was born in what many now call East Germany—formerly the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Funny thing, though—East Germany isn’t all that far east when you look at a map today. It’s basically smack in the middle of Europe. But try telling that to people, and they’ll still call you "Eastern European," as if we’re stuck in some Cold War narrative. I’m an Ossie, yes—but I'm not what they think I am.¹

And no, my story doesn’t end with the Berlin Wall coming down.

Photo by Norbert Braun on Unsplash

I am writing this today, on October 3rd, 2024—the anniversary of Germany’s reunification—but I can’t say I feel we’ve ever truly grown together. Sure, on paper, Germany’s unified, but for me—and many like me—that division runs deeper than geography. It’s been 35 years since reunification, yet I still face the questions, the looks, and the underlying assumptions that there must be something inherently wrong with me—the Ossie.

Most West Germans I’ve met over the years have never even set foot in cities like Leipzig, Dresden, or Magdeburg, but they’re quick to share their opinions about where I come from. Aus der Ost-Zone! (From the Eastern Zone!)

And Berlin? Oh, everyone knows Berlin—the darling of reunification.

But even Berlin’s history gets flattened, reduced to a symbol of one thing when, in reality, it was the capital of the GDR before becoming a global hotspot. The eastern parts of Berlin, like Prenzlauer Berg, were taken over by West Germans, pushing out the real East Berliners who could no longer afford the rising rents.

But here’s the thing: for the first 12 and a half years of my life, the GDR was home. My home.

It was where I went to kindergarten and started school with that cute Schultüte—the school cone filled with goodies that all kids receive on their first day of school. Those were some of my cherished childhood memories, especially visiting my grandparents every Saturday after school.

DDR - Deutsche Demokratische Republik

And yes, I was a Jungpionier and a Thälmann Pioneer, and I was quite proud of it too. Those aspects were part of my identity, symbols of my childhood in the GDR, even if that pride feels complicated now. Sure, I’m fully aware that it was a different world, shaped by Russian occupation and a completely different set of values.

But it was my world, despite its hiccups, even if people remind me—and I am fully aware that I lived in a dictatorship. Now, I am free to be myself.

And then, suddenly, I was expected to merge into a 'unified' Germany literally overnight, where my history was erased or treated like a relic of the past. Funny, right? Just when I least expected it, I found myself sucked into a place that had been considered our enemy number one, our capitalistic half-brother in the West, for 40 years—and now we were expected to be the best of friends.

I was supposed to be just like him...ha.

My reality had become just a footnote in the larger West German narrative. There were no authorities you could turn to—what was real yesterday suddenly felt surreal today. Everyone had been pretty much clueless for quite a long time. The world got smaller, but my sense of belonging became even smaller—especially when West Germans suddenly tried to explain the world to us, much like the unwanted teachers they sent over from the West.

They let out their frustration on us, and we were not having it. We could not help but reflect it right back. Oh, how they complained about the GDR chalk that crumbled when used on the blackboard or attacked some of my classmates for not complying. That behavior came across as extremely arrogant and presumptuous—simply disrespectful—and it never went down well.

You see, my roots go deeper than just the GDR. My ancestors on my father’s side came from a place that no longer belongs to Germany—Wrocław, in Poland, which used to be Breslau before the Russians moved the Poles in after WWII and pushed the Germans out.

So, my roots are in this in-between space, this land that has been traded and taken over again and again. On my mother’s side, it’s Saxony—yes, the same Saxony in Eastern Germany that’s constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons. The Saxony where they speak that ‘funny’ dialect. That’s part of my family, and those places—Rochlitz, Leipzig—were once home to generations before me.

It stings when I hear people talk about East Germany as the 'Dunkel-Deutschland'—the "Dark Germany." My once home gets painted with this broad, ugly brush, as if it’s just a backward, stagnant place where nothing good comes from.

Hello!!!

Middle Eastern Europe

What’s said on TV spreads like wildfire, and pretty soon everyone assumes it’s the truth. How would you feel if your hometown, home country and your entire history were constantly dragged through the mud? When everything that was once dear to you becomes non-existent, and it’s not by people who’ve even been there? How could they truly know? And yet they wave their judgmental fingers at you.

The funny thing is, for all the talk about the GDR, East Germans like me—'Ossies'—are still treated like outsiders in our own country. Everyone talks about inclusivity, but where is it? I’ve lived in the UK, Ireland, France, and now Belgium, and no matter where I go, people have their opinions about East Germany. It’s like we’re still stuck in an outdated narrative, frozen in time. And yes, I’ve been called Irish, English, Polish—whatever suited the moment—and lazy too. People say East Germans don’t work as hard, or that we’re somehow behind the curve. And the Nazi thing? Let’s get one thing straight—not everyone from East Germany is a Nazi, alright?

But I’ll tell you what’s ironic: West Germans often get a bad rep too, especially abroad. So, the stereotype ends up hitting both sides in different ways, but somehow, East Germans always seem to come off worse. I’ll never forget walking down Summerhill North in Cork, Ireland, when some young fella from the Northside shouted, ‘Go back home! Go back to Poland!’ Apparently, I didn’t look Irish enough for his liking. To some people, East Germans, Poles—whatever—it’s all the same. And they don’t care to learn the difference.

To say it in Lao Tzu wonderful wise words:

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”

But not every stereotype is just about laziness or ignorance. Some are far more dangerous. I’ll never forget the night before my 16th birthday. It was already pitch-dark when my school- friends and I were walking around Magdeburg Nord after playing pool, minding our own business, when two men dressed as full-blown Nazis stepped out of a café. We kept walking, trying to act like nothing was happening. But then one of my friends said, ‘Spread out and run.’ I didn’t ask questions. I ran like my life depended on it because, in that moment, it really did.

As I sprinted across the street, I could hear their boots pounding on the concrete behind me. A random man suddenly appeared under the bright street light and asked, 'Are you alright?' I responded, 'Actually, no. These guys are after me, and I don’t know why.' That’s when I heard them shouting across the road: ‘Ihr Zecken, wir kriegen Euch alle!’ (‘You ticks, we’ll catch you all!’), their voices filled with hatred. I didn’t even know what 'Zecken' meant at the time; all I knew was that I was too different for their liking.²

Maybe it was the flare jeans and the long, greasy hair—who knows? But their anger was real, and I could feel it. They didn’t care who I was or what I stood for; they just wanted to erase me. Thanks to this man, I am still here.

After I finished school, I went to London for two years as an au pair. It was there, in a foreign country, that I began to learn about the 'unified' German history I had never known growing up in the GDR. I discovered the story of the Blitz in London in September 1940 when the German Luftwaffe dropped around 20,000 bombs on the city, killing thousands and leaving many more homeless, with significant destruction along Sydney Road in Turnpike Lane, North London where I lived in the mid-1990s.

This history had been kept from me—or at least heavily curated—and it marked the beginning of my estrangement from Germany. In the past two years, I only learned that my great-uncle was shot down during a flight over the British channel with his entire crew. His body washed ashore at Portishead on September 12, 1940, and he is buried at the Weston-super-Mare war cemetery.

My family only discovered this in 1988; until then, my grandfather and his sister had considered him lost. Still, I know very little about what my family did during that time. It was only later that I began to realise how incomplete, even distorted, the version of history I had grown up with was. This hit me especially hard when I was at a Verve concert in 1997 with two German girls from the West, and two English lads greeted us with the Hitler salute, assuming it was something common where we came from.

I was astounded by their audacity and immediately challenged them, asking if that’s what they were taught in school, since such behavior was strictly prohibited in Germany. I realize now how naive I was. My companions from the West felt ashamed, and I felt that shame, but I couldn’t understand why we were made to feel this way. Our generation had been doing so much healing—and still is—yet those around us seemed to refuse to confront their own history and dismantle the stereotypes they held.

Living in London and later in Berlin, I met wonderful Jewish friends who shared their rich histories and perspectives with me. Their stories deepened my understanding of the complex tapestry that shaped Germany and its people, challenging my own perceptions and forcing me to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past.

I learned that there was an entirely different narrative out there—one that didn’t align with the reality I had experienced in the GDR or in a ‘unified’ Germany. Later, when I studied German as a foreign language, it hit me even harder: we were only taught about West Germany’s history. My own East German history—the life I had lived—was simply left out, as if it had never existed, making me feel as though I didn’t exist.

And when it was acknowledged, it was dragged through the dirt, reduced to stereotypes, or treated like a dark stain on the country’s past. How could a part of Germany’s identity just be erased—or worse, ridiculed, with every East German labeled a Nazi? It felt like my story was being overwritten by someone else’s version of the truth, only deepening that sense of estrangement.

Have you ever been to a museum about your own life? I have—there are two in Berlin, dedicated to the GDR. It’s surreal to sit there, surrounded by pieces of what feels like your living room, your past, as if you’re a part of history that others now walk through. It’s like you’re still living in it, but to everyone else, it’s just a distant, frozen world.

When I finished university, I knew I had to leave for good. It wasn’t rebellion; it was survival—a need to thrive. Germany didn’t feel like home anymore, at least not the kind of home I could live in. It wasn’t safe. I tried coming back, but after a year and a half, I realised it wasn’t going to work.

Ellie Fox describes it beautifully in And Then the Devil Cried: Episode One:

“When you realise you don’t matter, the world becomes inconsequential and claustrophobic. You feel trapped inside your body and your mind. Nothing can take you out of desperation, unless they take the brunt of your loneliness and make it their own.”

Indeed, not everyone is willing to face this loneliness and still hold their head up high.
It requires a certain kind of bravery, a quiet, often unrecognised strength to stand firm in the face of such isolation. To feel unseen and unheard, yet still rise each day, choosing to carry the weight of your own existence when the world refuses to lighten the load.

It’s not just about surviving the loneliness—it’s about maintaining a sense of self-worth in a world that constantly questions your value. Most people run from it, hide behind distractions, or seek validation in others, even if I know we all deserve to feel validated. But to face loneliness head-on, to sit with that discomfort and still find a way to love yourself, and that every day—that’s a rare kind of resilience.

My history, my roots, my very being—they felt like they didn’t matter in this so-called 'unified' Germany, where the past was selectively remembered, and my Eastern identity was either dismissed or dragged through the mud. I had no choice but to cultivate a way of being that allowed me to feel at home within myself.

So happy 35th anniversary to myself!

And maybe that’s the real lesson here: when the world refuses to recognise where I come from, and who I am, especially when I know myself well enough, I have to create my own sense of belonging. I’ve carried that lesson with me across countries and cultures throughout Europe, and it’s what keeps me alive and grounded no matter where I go.

Thank you.

DD🌻

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossi_and_Wessi

2 A Zecke is a common term used in Germany's right-wing extremist environment to degrade and insult those who think differently, especially leftist and Punks. See Wikipedia.